Even though I am on Mr flieslikeadog's ignore list, let me correct something. A stock TS 2 with an 8 cell pack can loop, do rolls and fly inverted from level flight. It can even do inverted loops from level flight. Then again, I've flown one many times, contrary to some theoreticians...

BTW, I am totally incapable of flying a GWS plane, as I get so bored after about 20 seconds of flight that I quit. I sold the Tiger Moth and Pico Fokker I bought. Those planes do not have an airfoil, a wing or anything, just a big prop...
I'd rather fly my Easy Star, it is not mind numbing.

Hey now,
Gawds you guys'll bicker over anything
I've flown a couple of easystars for other folks, just to trim them out.
One flew pretty well considering. Nice, gentle motor sailer with just enough power to putt around and more or less loop from level flight. Good enough to start learning on.
The other? It just didn't have any power. Barely flew at all with the motor on, only the shallowest of climb rates and no way would it loop. What was the difference? I dunno, they were both new and box stock and neither person advanced the timing or broke in the motor and both used new seven cell subC battery packs.

I guess they're o.k., but I don't see any reason to own one.

GWS planes; the Tiger Moth looks cute as a bug, but the one I flew bored me to tears, no glide, no aerobatics, no nuthin.

I can't stand the slo-stick either, it's not even good for a trainer IMNSHO.
It flies too well on it's own, the newbie pilot doesn't learn anything. Why some advanced pilots fly them I'll never know.

Their warbirds look o.k., not very scale, but o.k.. They fly o.k. too, not great, but o.k. If you hop them up a bit they're better but still not my cuppa.

The Formosa on the other hand is a very nice little model. Box stock it flies alright, teaches you basic aerobatics and if you hop it up (yeah I know more buck$) it makes a very fine park sized pattern model. I had one for a couple of years and it flys almost exactly like my much larger Zen, not too bad for a hopped up foamie.

Oh yeah, the Formosa works pretty well as a sloper too, very nice light air glider and even takes ballast well for bigger lift days.
Speaking of big lift days, the March winds are picking up, I gotta get my U-2 out and wax her up. She needs big lift with her thirty oz per square foot wing loading and it looks like we'll get that kind of lift between the squalls saturday. She's also my fastest model, clocked at 175mph coming out of a dive (front side, I haven't the nerve to D.S. her yet). Of course my pop-n-drop landings are going to be horrid, I haven't done any since September, look out guys it's lawn dart time!
RobII

Hey now,
Gawds you guys'll bicker over anything
I've flown a couple of easystars for other folks, just to trim them out.
One flew pretty well considering. Nice, gentle motor sailer with just enough power to putt around and more or less loop from level flight. Good enough to start learning on.
The other? It just didn't have any power. Barely flew at all with the motor on, only the shallowest of climb rates and no way would it loop. What was the difference? I dunno, they were both new and box stock and neither person advanced the timing or broke in the motor and both used new seven cell subC battery packs.

SubC packs in an EasyStar? NO!!!!!
You should have 2/3A packs - 180-200 grams for an 8 cell pack at the most. Otherwise it becomes a flying sow... A 7 cell SubC pack weights over 300 grams... And there are good odds the one that didn't fly well had a reversed prop. It still may fly, but at 1/3 the thrust it should have. Had a Combat Pico Jet I sold to a friend and he kept complaining it didn't fly. It turned out he had replaced the prop and hadn't reversed it... Then he sold it to a guy who installed a kontronik 480-33 and it disintegrated due to wing flutter (not the ailevon,the whole wing half was fluttering).
Anyway, I own one because I learned to fly with it and a Mini Piper, 2 years ago... Those were my first RC planes, very, very far from the Pike Brio I was winch launching this afternoon...

A U-2? So you also suffer from PNS... I'd love to buy one but shiping costs to Europe plus customs are appaling.

wonder if flys like a Bagel really has fun besides straining his brain cells. I have a gws e-starter - tigermoth-zero- two slow sticks "modified-a TS II with 400 7.2 v.and just stick in them what think will work-just enjoy playing not impressing with my lack of knowleged -Thought that was what this was all about .
So guess that's reason i have such a lack of knowledge- oh well i'm haveing fun
how bout you ??

Actualy the one flew as good as any foam RES model, well no spoilers so I s'pose it was a REM model

And there are good odds the one that didn't fly well had a reversed prop. It still may fly, but at 1/3 the thrust it should have.

No, bad odds. In fourty years of flying I'm *never* forgotten to check prop direction or rotation, never. The prop was right, shiny side forward and writing aft. I've used Gunther props fairly often and I've seen plenty of folks make exactly that mistake. but believe me (or not ) I checked it. Twice.

Had a Combat Pico Jet I sold to a friend and he kept complaining it didn't fly. It turned out he had replaced the prop and hadn't reversed it... Then he sold it to a guy who installed a kontronik 480-33 and it disintegrated due to wing flutter (not the ailevon,the whole wing half was fluttering).

That musta been something to see! A 480-33 direct drive on a Pico jet?!? Woffa!

Anyway, I own one because I learned to fly with it and a Mini Piper, 2 years ago... Those were my first RC planes, very, very far from the Pike Brio I was winch launching this afternoon...

Very, very far. Pike's a good model, 'though I'm happier with the Millinium, it'll thermal fine and it's fast on the slope.
My first R/C was a Das Little Stick with a Veco .19 and early Futaba radio.
No servo reversing, no ATV, Expo, dual rates, or mixing and about $450 retail.
My first sailplane was a Wanderer, next came a Hobie Hawk, still have one of those stashed away

A U-2? So you also suffer from PNS... I'd love to buy one but shiping costs to Europe plus customs are appaling.

PNS? Mine is a one off looslely based o the old Higgin's Rodent; carbon over blue foam wings, Carbon over ply tail surfaces, glass fuse. All bagged and pretty with a 61" wing span. It's so solid you can lawn dart it on purpose with out hurting it at all. My favorite sloper
RobII

[QUOTE=justaguy533]wonder if flys like a Bagel really has fun besides straining his brain cells. I have a gws e-starter - tigermoth-zero- two slow sticks "modified-a TS II with 400 7.2 v.and just stick in them what think will work-just enjoy playing not impressing with my lack of knowleged -Thought that was what this was all about .
So guess that's reason i have such a lack of knowledge- oh well i'm haveing fun
how bout you ??

Hey now,
Me? I'm havin' fun. Building, flying, bench racing , figuring out all the little bits that need to work to get the model to fly, it's all fun even if I do rip my hair out over some parts now and then.

Beagle claims to fly often, and I believe him, he also gets a kick out of doing the math (something I'm not so good at). As long as you're having fun with the hobby/sport why worry about how others get their kicks?
I got wings to sand and a U2 to wax, I gotta go
RobII

Then one of them had a good pack and the other definitely had some problem. Now you can easily imagine how lively it becomes with a 20-25% weight reduction from the one you flew. It even does scare some beginners who do the mistake of trying to fly it close.

Quote:

That musta been something to see! A 480-33 direct drive on a Pico jet?!? Woffa!

It was actually scary... I tended to dive under a table when he passed overhead.

Quote:

PNS? Mine is a one off looslely based o the old Higgin's Rodent; carbon over blue foam wings, Carbon over ply tail surfaces, glass fuse. All bagged and pretty with a 61" wing span. It's so solid you can lawn dart it on purpose with out hurting it at all. My favorite sloper
RobII

Exactly, PNS - Pointy Nose Syndrome
I'd love to have one!!!!!

BTW, I compete in F3F and F3B, that is the reason for my Pikes, one Brio eXtreme for F3F and a Brio carbon X-tail for F3B (soon to be a Pike Giant, waiting for new wingtips).

Beagle claims to fly often, and I believe him, he also gets a kick out of doing the math (something I'm not so good at). As long as you're having fun with the hobby/sport why worry about how others get their kicks?
RobII

My only issue was that the math is not giving him good information.

This happens too often in E-flying. If there is not a recomended or stock power system, I go for a watts/kilo formula (that changes depending on the type of plane and type of flight desired - 100-150 watts/Kg for a trainer type plane, 250-400watts/Kg for an LMR type sailplane. Then I select a power system - motor, battery, eventualy gearbox - use a calc program to predict a prop diameter and then I measure, as the calc program will be wrong. Usually I go 1 inch down in diameter from what the calc program tells me. In the case of the Axi2820/10 with 8 cells in my Magister I actually ended up with a prop 2" smaller than the calc program predicted. Curiously enough I see lots of people recommending this motor with the too big prop.
Moving to real life, everybody and 2 calc programs suggest a 12x7 prop and I found out an 11x7 prop measured too close to the current limits both for motor and ESC. I tried a 10x7 and I actually measured the current I "should" be reading for a 12x7...Same with RPMs and volts. I didn't measure static thrust as I still haven't bought the necessary fisherman dynamometer.

wonder if flys like a Bagel really has fun besides straining his brain cells. I have a gws e-starter - tigermoth-zero- two slow sticks "modified-a TS II with 400 7.2 v.and just stick in them what think will work-just enjoy playing

Well, not that it matters, but you can get a hint from the name of my RC Groups website (take a look at the big heading at the top of the page at http://flbeagle.rchomepage.com ). You can also take a look at some of the planes I've built and flown over the last 18 months in the "my planes" section.

If you're looking for independent confirmation for some reason, you can always ask (send a PM!) Pelanconi Flyer and FX-2 on RC Groups, both of whom have seen me fly many times. Pelanconi Flyer is a regular at the same field I fly from, and we used to meet and fly together four to five times a week for most of the past year, except when work or weather stopped us. FX-2 and I both enjoy figuring things out, and he builds tons of beautiful planes, many of which I've been lucky enough to maiden for him or fly. There are several other regulars who have also flown with me at the same field many times a week, but some are not on RC Groups, and I don't know the RC Groups usernames of others.

I haven't flown as much this last month due to a combination of illness, rain, work, more illness, more work, and more rain. But that is a statistical anomaly; for most of the past 12 - 15 months, I've been out flying three to five times a week.

I think a big part of why this hobby is fun is that it can go in so many different directions. Here on RC Groups I see people who design and build new planes faster than I ever put together a kit (like GPW and Gene Bond). I see video clips from people who can fly aerobatics that are so beautiful to watch they awe me. I see paint and decoration schemes so artistic or elaborate I am amazed at the talent that goes into them.

I don't have talent beyond the average in any of those directions. After nearly two years of flying, I cannot even come close to flying rolling circles, for instance. Three year old Justin Chi (on the 3D forum) can outfly me with one hand tied behind his back (well, he can outfly most of the RC pilots I've met, too this kid is amazingly talented!).

As it happens, my background is technical, and after flying stock power setups for a while, I wanted to learn how to choose power setups for my models, so I put time and effort into doing that. GPW got me started by explaining wing loading and power loading (watts/ounce or watts/kg), then I learned a lot from RC Groups users Vintage1, Gene Bond, DeanInMilwaukee, Astro Bob (via his book on motors), and many others.

Many people use rules-of-thumb based on wing and power loading, but along the way I found out that wing and power loading are far from the whole story. Watts / oz or Watts/kg is useful for comparing similar size and weight models, but it can fail badly when the models are widely different in size or weight. Wing loading has the same problem, even more so - big planes and small planes with the same wing loading fly very differently. A model airplane can fly very well with far less than 50 W/lb (the old rule of thumb says 50 W/lb is the minimum safe power), if it has a low stall speed and the prop and gearing are chosen to match. A model airplane can also fail entirely to fly at all with well over 50W/lb, if it has a high stall speed or an inefficient or poorly matched powerplant is used (a direct drive Speed 400 on a slow airframe like an EasyStar is a good example of a very mismatched powerplant and airframe).

I then wrote WebOCalc to make it easy for others to use what I had learned. None of the technical stuff about choosing powerplants for planes that I quote in this thread is my own idea - all of it is learned from others, all of it is well known. The only thing that is entirely mine is the actual program I wrote, WebOCalc itself.

I think you mentioned the key word, "playing". Play is a very subjective thing - what's play to one person is torture to another. I enjoy flying (playing with) my RC planes; I also enjoy writing computer programs, and figuring out how things work. All of those are different forms of play for me, that's all.

If you find the information I post useful, that's great, I'm glad to have been of help. If you couldn't care less about any of this stuff, that's great too, neither you nor I lose anything by that, you know?

I don't understand why you guys are going on about how often you go flying. What has that got to do with piloting skills? I know guys who have been flying regularly for decades, and are still not a good as some kids, who are less than 10 years old.

I get much more adrenalyne flow flying my SU27XXL Indoors, than with anything else I have for Outdoor flying, but then I also enjoy teasing the dogs with the TS II.

GWS planes; the Tiger Moth looks cute as a bug, but the one I flew bored me to tears, no glide, no aerobatics, no nuthin.

Oh, I wouldn't go quite that far. The 'Moth is no Formosa for sure, but it will loop, do stalls and tail-slides and wingovers, and if you pull the throttle down, hold full up elevator till it stalls, and then hold full rudder, it will spiral down in the slowest and daintiest spin you've ever seen. Technically it might be a spiral dive rather than a spin as it's hard to stall the wing of a 7-oz 'Moth. It looks pretty by either name.

Touch-n-goes were my favorite thing with my 'Moth, that and just watching it drift by like a large dragonfly.

My first GWS plane was an E-Starter. I flew it with the stock motor and gearbox and a 9x7 RS prop, run on a 2S lipo pack. It was my aileron trainer - I learned to use my left hand (Mode II) with it, also to do my first aileron rolls, fly inverted, do my first (ugly) Cuban eights, etc, etc. It required a freshly charged pack and a hefty dose of forward stick to fly inverted, but it would do inverted horizontal figure-eight circuits of the flying field all the same.

I flew my Formosa for so many hours I have completely lost count. It was a wonderful plane till I left mine in my car on a hot day, and it came out with the tail group rotated ten degrees and a fair bit of elliptical dihedral baked into the wing. It would still fly, but knife edge was a terrifying affair because of the cross-coupling from the twisted tail group, and inverted was no longer as much fun because of the dihedral. I gotta build myself another one one of these days.

I don't understand why you guys are going on about how often you go flying.

I'm not sure either, Jurgen, it seems some are starting to doubt if I exist at all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jurgen Heilig

What has that got to do with piloting skills? I know guys who have been flying regularly for decades, and are still not a good as some kids, who are less than 10 years old.

Heck, search for "3 year old" on the 3D forum and look at Justin Chi's videos. That three year old kid flies better a lot of stuff better than anyone at my flying field, myself included! The kid does inverted rolling harriers without breathing hard, for instance.

That said, stick time does have something to do with attaining and keeping flying skills - I will likely never be as good a pilot as Justin Chi, but I will be even worse if I don't put in plenty of stick time!

I don't understand why you guys are going on about how often you go flying. What has that got to do with piloting skills?

One has a LOT to do with the other. One cannot attain better or more flying skills without more stick time.

Have you ever heard that saying: "Correlation does not prove causality."?

It applies here. An 70 year-old man who has been flying for 50 years may not necessarily be able to hover & fly F3B. He has not been trying to!

That has not been his goal, or he'd do it. (unless he's very mal-coordinated or can't afford the crashes)

Speaking of which, crashing model RC airplanes has gotten much more affordable lately, as I'm sure you can attest to. With that and the advent of flight simulators, the learning curve can be very short. (as Justin's parents would tell you.)

I think a big part of why this hobby is fun is that it can go in so many different directions. Happy flying,
-Flieslikeabeagle

You hit it right on the head with that sentence . One thing though, can you post a pic of you actually flying a plane? Ah, just kiddin At the moment I am going to fly mine stock, 8 cells 3600, jeti 45 and going to try one of my DX6 receivers. I hate when people have to upgrade things to brushless, I am always one to have to keep up with the Joneses, but it is my Birthday today, and the wife doesn't know what to get me, Hmmmm Its just like, I read about the Eflight P47, promised I would keep it stock, got to the HS and of course came home with a brushless setup for it too, does it ever stop? Bud